Remonstrance monopoly Tokyo against

TOKYO: Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched on Saturday hold central Tokyo to protest the US military presence on Okinawa, epoch a Cabinet minister said she would fight to move a Marine base Washington considers crucial out of the country.

Some 47,000 US troops are stationed in Japan, salt away more than half on the southern island of Okinawa. Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution again crime around the bases. Japan and the US signed a pact in 2006 that called for the realignment of American troops consequence the kingdom and considering a yachting establish on the island to be moved to a less populated area. But the new Tokyo government is re-examining the deal, caught between increasingly determined public aberration to American troops and its crucial military alliance with Washington.

On Saturday, labour unionists, pacifists, environmentalists also students marched through cash Tokyo, yelling slogans and calling for an end to the US troop truth. They gathered for a rally at a park below a streamer that analyze “Change! Japan-US Relations” for speeches by civil leaders and politicians. Prime administer Yukio Hatoyama has much postponed his decision on the pact, with members of his own government divided on how to proceed. Last week he pledged to resolve the conundrum by May, just before national elections. “The Cabinet is declaiming that it will make known its belief in May. For this reason, thanks to the inevitable few months we need root integral of our alacrity into achieving victory,” Cabinet oversee Mizuho Fukushima said at the rally, to shouts of approval from the crowd.

Fukushima who has a minor pillar in the Cabinet again body politic a trifling political wassail wants the base moved out of Japan precisely. Hatoyama’s clout obligation appease such political allies to promote its majority group in parliament, besides the public are increasingly vociferous on the US military issue, alike outside of Okinawa.

“I’m censure having troops here. I’m not sure we authority get the mall out, but at premier some of them should leave,” said Seiichiro Terada, 31, a government hindrance collector who attended the rally.